Catching up on Doctor Who
Dec. 26th, 2015 02:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tardis_stowawayI have a lot of thoughts about Doctor Who, y'all. I'd let myself fall very behind this season, but I watched Sleep No More and Face the Raven a few nights ago, then Heaven Sent, Hell Bent, and The Husbands of River Song all in a Christmas binge with my family. Here are some very general spoiler-free thoughts outside a cut first, then episode-specific thoughts. These are largely without reading anyone else's reactions, since I couldn't read them at the time without spoilers and I no longer remember which of y'all have been posting about Doctor Who.
Overall, I think this season has been tremendously good, easily the best since series 5 and perhaps the best since Moffat took over as showrunner. Not every episode has been perfect, but there have been more really strong ones than weakish ones and none at all I want to bury in a hole and never dig up. I've enjoyed the format of having almost entirely two-parters. It allowed deeper development of supporting characters, more worldbuilding, and richer stories. Peter Capaldi is outstanding as the Doctor, and I feel like the writers have a much better handle on his Doctor this series than last. Clara is still probably my least favorite main New Who companion in terms of who I identify with or want to travel beside, but I think her character arc in S9 was fascinating, and I think Jenna Coleman is wonderful in the role.
Sleep No More
Disappointing. I really like that they tried something different with the found footage concept, and the atmosphere was effectively creepy. However the monsters were SO nonsensical (carnivorous sleep dust monsters?? really???) and not terribly well executed, and the plot just didn't make a ton of sense. I did like that most all of the guest cast were POC, but sadly the script didn't give the actors enough character development to work with. There were some interesting worldbuilding elements, but those bits of interest and the cool episode title (from Macbeth) just felt wasted on the weak and weird (in a bad way) plot. I often like Mark Gatiss as a Doctor Who writer, but this was one of the weaker points in the season.
Face the Raven
The Doctor and Clara investigate a murder in Diagon Alley For Aliens and run intoArya Stark Ashildr Lady Me; things don't go as planned. I wish that Sleep No More hadn't existed so this could have been a two-parter. I love stories of hidden magic cities within a real city, especially when that city is London (see Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, the aforementioned Diagon Alley, Kate Griffin's Matthew Swift books, and more), and I thought this one was neat but needed a little bit more both about how it works and character development for its residents. We had two recurring guest characters, Lady Me and Rigsy, though it took me most of the episode to place where we'd seen Rigsy before (Flatline, which was a great episode but quite a while ago). Lady Me, meanwhile, seems to have bitten off a bit more than she can chew in trying to keep this powderkeg of an alien community at peace with each other and the surrounding humans, having some sort of contract with the raven spirit thing, and then having made a deal to entrap the Doctor with the mysterious powers whose identity we learn next episode. I really like that she's allowed to be morally ambiguous. She has more concern for others than she did when we saw her as a highwayman, but that doesn't mean she follows the ethical code we mortals or the Doctor might wish she had, and she certainly doesn't align herself with the characters we viewers are used to rooting for. She's an antagonist for sure, but not a villain like the Master.
But I'm avoiding the most significant parts of the episode. Clara died, two episodes before I expected her exit. It was surprising and upsetting. It wasn't even a death saving the world, but an attempt to save one person that turned out to be a mistake based on acting without full information. It could have felt pointless and anger-inducing. However, Clara's risktaking all season, her cleverness, and occasional sneakiness made this death feel like a natural possibility based on her character, and her courage in the face of doom and her insistence on reminding the Doctor to be his best self and avoid revenge made her death feel worthy of a long-serving companion. Then the Doctor got kidnapped by teleport, and basically everything is awful.
I would like to point out that Lady Me edited the memories of humans using retcon, a drug developed by Torchwood. This suggests that she followed the Doctor's suggestion to look up Captain Jack Harkness. What happened when the two immortals met? Is there fanfic????
Heaven Sent
This episode was really damn good. It works because Peter Capaldi is such a strong actor that his performance can carry the show alone. The episode is a carefully crafted puzzle-box (literally) that pulled me in to the Doctor's dread, confusion, frustration, and anger. (I haven't generally been a fan of Moffat as DW showrunner, but when he's in good form he can be one hell of a good scriptwriter, and this was a top notch script.) The monster wasn't all that scary in itself, but Capaldi's reactions were enough to make me willing to accept it as a threat. I'd guessed from the moment we saw the injured hand operating the teleport at the start that the hand likely belonged to the Doctor, but I'd assumed he was caught in a time loop and would get out through some clever timey-wimeyness. The revelation of what was really going on shocked and horrified me, as it was intended to, and I never would have predicted until the montage of deep time passing that the Doctor would literally punch his way out of a problem.
It was a small moment, but the one thing I strongly disliked about this episode was the Doctor confessing that he ran away from Gallifrey because he was scared. That is fundamentally different from the way I see the Doctor and the previously established canon, and it's not a change I like. I believe the Doctor is genuinely scared of dying, but I think his deepest motivation for leaving Gallifrey and becoming what he is, underneath all the sadness of what he's lost over the centuries, more central to his hearts than his fear of death, deeper even than the desire to help others, is restlessness at routine expectations and joy in exploring the unknown. The TARDIS stole him because she wanted to see the universe, and he stole her for the same reason. To suggest otherwise makes the whole show darker and smaller. So that was a frustrating moment, but everything else was darkly excellent.
Hell Bent
I have profoundly mixed feelings about this episode. There were parts that made me transcendentally happy and parts that made me want to grumble or even shout.
I didn't much like the earlier parts of the episode focusing on Time Lord politics, their reactions to having the Doctor back, or their prophecies about the Hybrid. I've written before that I thought undoing the Time War's destruction of Gallifrey was a bad storytelling decision, and one of the many reasons for that opinion is that the Time Lords on Gallifrey just aren't that interesting IMHO. Sadly, this episode supported my point. I don't care about the Doctor angrily eating soup outside that stupid recurring barn. I don't understand how the Time Lords are hiding out near the end of time but also apparently were communicating with 21st century earth in order to entrap the Doctor (wouldn't TARDIS-ing back and forth alert the Doctor and whoever else they're avoiding to Gallifrey's location?), but I don't really care to try to figure it out. The whole scene in the cloisters did not come across as mysterious or dangerous. One part I did like about the sojourn on Gallifrey was that we had a Time Lord regenerating onscreen change gender and race. Nice to have something else to wave in the face of those who think the Doctor should always be a white dude.
The plot between Clara and the Doctor, on the other hand, was fascinating. Given the fact that they'd killed Clara off with two episodes to go, I wasn't entirely surprised that the show found an excuse to bring her back onscreen. The Doctor strays very close to Time Lord Victorious territory in his refusal to accept Clara's death, and as worrisome as that always is to see I think it was very believable for how he would respond. I found all the Time Lord's nonsense about a Hybrid prophecy to be pretty annoying, though I did enjoy some of the argument between the Doctor and Lady Me about who was meant by it. (I simultaneously laughed and shouted at the screen when I realized they were going to throw the "Doctor is half human" notion, among the most mocked parts of the highly mockable TV movie, into the mix.) I'm not clear from just one watching whether we got a final answer about whether they Hybrid is Lady Me, the Doctor, or the combination of the Doctor and Clara, but whatever. I was pleased to unexpectedly run into Lady Me at the end of time, though I am somewhat dubious of the ability of someone who can be killed by sufficient injury to actually survive all those billions of years on the slow path. Also, were the Toclafane hanging around outside her lair there at the end of time?
I was SO ANGRY when it looked like we were going to have a repeat of Donna's Unconsenting Memory Wipe exit from the TARDIS. From a Watsonian perspective, I don't think the Doctor has ever done anything that made me angrier than stealing Donna's memories while she begged him not to. From a Doylist perspective, I am semi-okay with RTD's decision to write that because it was part of a larger arc of the Doctor going too far in imposing his will, an arc that was paid off in The Waters of Mars, but we didn't need to go all the way down that road again. This time, I was overjoyed that Clara put into words why that stealing of agency, even to save her life, was a problem. Man, sometimes Moffat's tendency to undo (literally or symbolically) the things he didn't like about RTD's era really rubs me the wrong way (see previously link about why Gallifrey should have stayed gone), but this one time it pleased me so much. Also, this feels like for once the Moff actually paid attention to some of the things that people have criticized about his past writing of women and did better. I am pleasantly shocked. But why can't they go and FIX THE ACTUAL DONNA NOBLE instead of merely redoing that situation with someone different and a different outcome? :`(
I don't really understand why the Doctor forgetting Clara does anything to heal the damage to time caused by her walking around when she should be dead (does it? or is she just gradually splintering the time stream by refusing to go face the raven yet?), and the diner frame story annoyed me a little bit because the Doctor seeking after a person whose personal details he can't remember puts Clara back a little bit in Impossible Girl quest object territory. However, while he might be viewing her as a quest, she is clearly allowed to have her own agenda. Undead Clara and ImmortalArya Ashildr Lady Me flying off for their own adventures in a TARDIS they only sort of know how to pilot is the stuff of fanfic, and it's GLORIOUS! I do worry that they are a Team TARDIS of highly questionable judgment in addition to the aforementioned possibility that Clara might be destroying time itself with her existence, but I am okay with that moral ambiguity. Also, Moffat has an ongoing tendency to pull back from the most serious consequences by not letting death stick; I think it's a bad writing habit, and I do find it frustrating that the show undid Clara's death. But her final exit from the show was just so pleasing to me that I can only muster up a limited amount of annoyance.
Maybe they can track down Donna based on the Doctor's reference to having had to wipe a friend's memory before, figure out a way to restore her memory (surely Me has been around long enough to know some telepaths who can help), and travel with her on their TARDIS. Yes, that could work nicely.
Husbands of River Song
Partway through this episode my dad asked me how I was feeling about it. I told him that it was a tale full of sound and silliness, signifying nothing. I did think it improved near the end, from River's rant about how the Doctor didn't come for her onwards. The scene at the restaurant was well done. However, while I felt that this episode handled River a fair amount better than the majority of her stories, my feelings for her overall character arc remain somewhere between indifference and actual annoyance, and the plot with the head-stealing cyborg thing was just a lot of nonsense, and not even especially entertaining nonsense. I did enjoy the Doctor's irritation at River's inability to recognize him. I didn't hate this episode, but it gets a yawn and slight eyeroll.
I've just realized that if we're getting a new companion next series and there hasn't been casting news yet, it's going to be a LONG time until more Doctor Who. That hiatus will weigh on me, since I'm feeling more engaged with the show than I have in years.
Overall, I think this season has been tremendously good, easily the best since series 5 and perhaps the best since Moffat took over as showrunner. Not every episode has been perfect, but there have been more really strong ones than weakish ones and none at all I want to bury in a hole and never dig up. I've enjoyed the format of having almost entirely two-parters. It allowed deeper development of supporting characters, more worldbuilding, and richer stories. Peter Capaldi is outstanding as the Doctor, and I feel like the writers have a much better handle on his Doctor this series than last. Clara is still probably my least favorite main New Who companion in terms of who I identify with or want to travel beside, but I think her character arc in S9 was fascinating, and I think Jenna Coleman is wonderful in the role.
Disappointing. I really like that they tried something different with the found footage concept, and the atmosphere was effectively creepy. However the monsters were SO nonsensical (carnivorous sleep dust monsters?? really???) and not terribly well executed, and the plot just didn't make a ton of sense. I did like that most all of the guest cast were POC, but sadly the script didn't give the actors enough character development to work with. There were some interesting worldbuilding elements, but those bits of interest and the cool episode title (from Macbeth) just felt wasted on the weak and weird (in a bad way) plot. I often like Mark Gatiss as a Doctor Who writer, but this was one of the weaker points in the season.
The Doctor and Clara investigate a murder in Diagon Alley For Aliens and run into
But I'm avoiding the most significant parts of the episode. Clara died, two episodes before I expected her exit. It was surprising and upsetting. It wasn't even a death saving the world, but an attempt to save one person that turned out to be a mistake based on acting without full information. It could have felt pointless and anger-inducing. However, Clara's risktaking all season, her cleverness, and occasional sneakiness made this death feel like a natural possibility based on her character, and her courage in the face of doom and her insistence on reminding the Doctor to be his best self and avoid revenge made her death feel worthy of a long-serving companion. Then the Doctor got kidnapped by teleport, and basically everything is awful.
I would like to point out that Lady Me edited the memories of humans using retcon, a drug developed by Torchwood. This suggests that she followed the Doctor's suggestion to look up Captain Jack Harkness. What happened when the two immortals met? Is there fanfic????
This episode was really damn good. It works because Peter Capaldi is such a strong actor that his performance can carry the show alone. The episode is a carefully crafted puzzle-box (literally) that pulled me in to the Doctor's dread, confusion, frustration, and anger. (I haven't generally been a fan of Moffat as DW showrunner, but when he's in good form he can be one hell of a good scriptwriter, and this was a top notch script.) The monster wasn't all that scary in itself, but Capaldi's reactions were enough to make me willing to accept it as a threat. I'd guessed from the moment we saw the injured hand operating the teleport at the start that the hand likely belonged to the Doctor, but I'd assumed he was caught in a time loop and would get out through some clever timey-wimeyness. The revelation of what was really going on shocked and horrified me, as it was intended to, and I never would have predicted until the montage of deep time passing that the Doctor would literally punch his way out of a problem.
It was a small moment, but the one thing I strongly disliked about this episode was the Doctor confessing that he ran away from Gallifrey because he was scared. That is fundamentally different from the way I see the Doctor and the previously established canon, and it's not a change I like. I believe the Doctor is genuinely scared of dying, but I think his deepest motivation for leaving Gallifrey and becoming what he is, underneath all the sadness of what he's lost over the centuries, more central to his hearts than his fear of death, deeper even than the desire to help others, is restlessness at routine expectations and joy in exploring the unknown. The TARDIS stole him because she wanted to see the universe, and he stole her for the same reason. To suggest otherwise makes the whole show darker and smaller. So that was a frustrating moment, but everything else was darkly excellent.
I have profoundly mixed feelings about this episode. There were parts that made me transcendentally happy and parts that made me want to grumble or even shout.
I didn't much like the earlier parts of the episode focusing on Time Lord politics, their reactions to having the Doctor back, or their prophecies about the Hybrid. I've written before that I thought undoing the Time War's destruction of Gallifrey was a bad storytelling decision, and one of the many reasons for that opinion is that the Time Lords on Gallifrey just aren't that interesting IMHO. Sadly, this episode supported my point. I don't care about the Doctor angrily eating soup outside that stupid recurring barn. I don't understand how the Time Lords are hiding out near the end of time but also apparently were communicating with 21st century earth in order to entrap the Doctor (wouldn't TARDIS-ing back and forth alert the Doctor and whoever else they're avoiding to Gallifrey's location?), but I don't really care to try to figure it out. The whole scene in the cloisters did not come across as mysterious or dangerous. One part I did like about the sojourn on Gallifrey was that we had a Time Lord regenerating onscreen change gender and race. Nice to have something else to wave in the face of those who think the Doctor should always be a white dude.
The plot between Clara and the Doctor, on the other hand, was fascinating. Given the fact that they'd killed Clara off with two episodes to go, I wasn't entirely surprised that the show found an excuse to bring her back onscreen. The Doctor strays very close to Time Lord Victorious territory in his refusal to accept Clara's death, and as worrisome as that always is to see I think it was very believable for how he would respond. I found all the Time Lord's nonsense about a Hybrid prophecy to be pretty annoying, though I did enjoy some of the argument between the Doctor and Lady Me about who was meant by it. (I simultaneously laughed and shouted at the screen when I realized they were going to throw the "Doctor is half human" notion, among the most mocked parts of the highly mockable TV movie, into the mix.) I'm not clear from just one watching whether we got a final answer about whether they Hybrid is Lady Me, the Doctor, or the combination of the Doctor and Clara, but whatever. I was pleased to unexpectedly run into Lady Me at the end of time, though I am somewhat dubious of the ability of someone who can be killed by sufficient injury to actually survive all those billions of years on the slow path. Also, were the Toclafane hanging around outside her lair there at the end of time?
I was SO ANGRY when it looked like we were going to have a repeat of Donna's Unconsenting Memory Wipe exit from the TARDIS. From a Watsonian perspective, I don't think the Doctor has ever done anything that made me angrier than stealing Donna's memories while she begged him not to. From a Doylist perspective, I am semi-okay with RTD's decision to write that because it was part of a larger arc of the Doctor going too far in imposing his will, an arc that was paid off in The Waters of Mars, but we didn't need to go all the way down that road again. This time, I was overjoyed that Clara put into words why that stealing of agency, even to save her life, was a problem. Man, sometimes Moffat's tendency to undo (literally or symbolically) the things he didn't like about RTD's era really rubs me the wrong way (see previously link about why Gallifrey should have stayed gone), but this one time it pleased me so much. Also, this feels like for once the Moff actually paid attention to some of the things that people have criticized about his past writing of women and did better. I am pleasantly shocked. But why can't they go and FIX THE ACTUAL DONNA NOBLE instead of merely redoing that situation with someone different and a different outcome? :`(
I don't really understand why the Doctor forgetting Clara does anything to heal the damage to time caused by her walking around when she should be dead (does it? or is she just gradually splintering the time stream by refusing to go face the raven yet?), and the diner frame story annoyed me a little bit because the Doctor seeking after a person whose personal details he can't remember puts Clara back a little bit in Impossible Girl quest object territory. However, while he might be viewing her as a quest, she is clearly allowed to have her own agenda. Undead Clara and Immortal
Maybe they can track down Donna based on the Doctor's reference to having had to wipe a friend's memory before, figure out a way to restore her memory (surely Me has been around long enough to know some telepaths who can help), and travel with her on their TARDIS. Yes, that could work nicely.
Partway through this episode my dad asked me how I was feeling about it. I told him that it was a tale full of sound and silliness, signifying nothing. I did think it improved near the end, from River's rant about how the Doctor didn't come for her onwards. The scene at the restaurant was well done. However, while I felt that this episode handled River a fair amount better than the majority of her stories, my feelings for her overall character arc remain somewhere between indifference and actual annoyance, and the plot with the head-stealing cyborg thing was just a lot of nonsense, and not even especially entertaining nonsense. I did enjoy the Doctor's irritation at River's inability to recognize him. I didn't hate this episode, but it gets a yawn and slight eyeroll.
I've just realized that if we're getting a new companion next series and there hasn't been casting news yet, it's going to be a LONG time until more Doctor Who. That hiatus will weigh on me, since I'm feeling more engaged with the show than I have in years.
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Date: 2015-12-26 10:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-12-27 10:42 am (UTC)I don't really understand why the Doctor forgetting Clara does anything to heal the damage to time caused by her walking around when she should be dead
I think the forgetting thing was supposed to stop the Time Lords from tracking Clara somehow, because they'd want to track her down to stop the time-shattering problem... which never seemed to be an actual problem. Yeah, I enjoyed a lot about "Hell Bent", but it definitely had some problems. And I completely agree that the Doctor running from Gallifrey because he was scared isn't a satisfying explanation. The Hybrid prophecy thing didn't really make sense at all.